


Tabula Rasa

by potatoscribbles



Category: B.A.P
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-07-25 20:01:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7545983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potatoscribbles/pseuds/potatoscribbles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Youngjae was granted a new life with a heart transplant, but was it the life he had wanted?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello, potatoscribbles again! this story was created during my hiatus as moomoo-mato and I thought it should have some light here (laughs).

It was this pain in his chest that spurred him awake. Had his heart been split open at the core and turned inside out or had it been flipped over and set a blazed with oil that replaced the flow of his blood? Youngjae did not know. All he saw was white, but his body levitated like a shipwreck trying to stay afloat, its vessel filling with black acid that tainted his soul and set fire to his organs.

Youngjae’s heart wasn’t his own.

He staggered to the window sill, flashing the curtains open and letting the sun soak his indoor paled skin. The world through the looking glass was as if he had lost himself in a fishbowl as it sat beside a rectangular painting. The paint stroke of green against a tree, or how the sky dusted its age in white. Grabbing a hold of his hospital robe that swaddled his chest, Youngjae turned away from the window and towards the steam pressed squares of cloth his parents left for him at the edge of the hospital bed. Black jeans, grey oversized sweater, and grey buckled shoes, the cotton against his skin felt foreign to his body.

He ignored this as he trudged his body out of the hospital and into the streets. The air was cold as people smoked their breaths to the sky like burnt out cigarettes. His spine chilled when a pair of gazing eyes locked onto him from across the street. A tall man made of shadows, whose sable locks came in waves, obscured his vision. He lifted his head as the darkness in his eyes pierced the younger’s heart with nostalgic filled daggers. Although he was across the street, Youngjae could see his dark circles smudge his lower eyelids like charcoal.

Keeping his chest warm with the palm of his hand, Youngjae avoided the man as he strode the streets to return to his apartment. Turning the key, his home became Wonderland and he, Alice, who fell into the rabbit hole. The aroma of coffee filled the room with honey caramel creamer and new paint. The pearl walls, each like a new canvas, had dust collected in rectangles as the picture frames of his old life had accompanied him to the hospital and left him to his parents home elsewhere. It was like he had lost himself ever since his operation and there were zero pieces in this puzzle to fit together. All like broken glass, the cracks becoming the lost feelings in his memories as nothing was his to hold. Had he attempted to attain these emotions, he fear a sharp pain, letting it slip through his fingers and disappear into the disapparing abyss. This lone pain buried in his heart, stirring in him as if he was forced to create something new in the stain glass windows of his body but too scared, too fragile, to walk the eggshells and try.

He searched his kitchen to look for lemon ginger tea to heat. His ceramic, pastel yellow mug shined like the sun and gave him the warmth he needed to feel at home. “This is an apartment that gives off the feeling of a home. It’s nice.”

The low voice came in like smoke and the shock racked Youngjae, shattering the sunlight from his hands and bringing the shadows inside once more. His gaze shot up and caught site of the familiar man from the street. He seemed more normal than before, as his skin glowed and his ruffles of frizzled hair parted in the middle of his forehead, revealing his young but defined face.

Youngjae could have  _sworn_  he locked the door and the only spiral of sensation that shocked him into reality was the steaming hot tea that spurted onto his bare feet. He wasn’t able to register the stranger that was in his house while the piping hot tea had turned into a puddle on his mahogany wooden floor. It forced him into a frenzy of fumbled words and fidgeting of scattered gestures. “W-Who are you? W-What the hell are you doing in my home?” he bellowed to the older as he scrambled to pick up the broken pieces and mop up the tea with a discarded towel from his kitchen counter top.

“My name was Bang Yongguk.”

Even his disarray of lost tea didn’t divert his attention to the older’s syntax. Throwing the pieces into the waste bin, Youngjae swiftly turned to the older with brows raised, skyrocketing onto the valleys ridged onto his forehead. “You just said  _was_.”

“That’s right.”

The younger’s mouth fell agape, but quickly closed shut as he tossed his arms in the air, thrusting them side to side before him in a form of swatting hot air. “I’m sorry. I don’t care what kind of game you’re trying to pull on me here” he declared as he gestured his hand goodbye, “I don’t know how you got in here, but you need to leave.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Like hell you are” the younger retaliated. Youngjae gestured to move his hands forward in order to push the older out the door, but it became no more than a game of tag as the older dodged the younger’s swift movement. “Get out of my apartment!” he shouted, “I don’t have time for this!”

“The immature type” the older speculated bluntly. He wrapped his fingers around his chin, examining the other attentively.

“Excuse me?” Youngjae’s voice scratched the linings of his throat, exasperated from the other’s sudden appearance. Yongguk leaned in closer, forcing the younger to retreat back and hold his breath.

“I’m here to examine where my heart had gone.”

“W-What are you talking about? Quit fucking around and get out!” With more strength and speed, Youngjae reached out for the older, but he only met with the hard surface of his countertop, the clattering of silverware and crinkling plastic resounding against his eardrums. Blinking, Youngjae gazed up in search for the strange intruder. His jaw found the counter, his chin rubbing side to side against the marbled surface, as he shook his head in disbelief.

Yongguk stood before him with a bare face, his monochrome features depicting the contrast like an abyss drilling a hole into the bare canvas of his walls, swishing the paint spirals of ebony and coming to life in pure noir. Youngjae’s eyes faltered like a ray of stars as his eyes drifted to the older’s hips. His translucent body was undeniable as he stood inside the counter top, his chest air kissing the coffee maker and box of chocolate teddy graham crackers that had long gone expired. Unfazed, Yongguk crossed his arms, his voice echoing as if it was eons away from the other’s ears. “We need to talk.”

Had Youngjae held any incredulity left, it had left him the moment he tried to reach for Yongguk. His hands slid right through his like a wisp of smoke as his vision faded to black. His body felt the coldness of the wooden floor and the darkness consumed him like a starless, winter night. In his final moments of wake, Youngjae couldn’t help but compare his previous life to the next.

Had new beginnings were supposed to be something of pure white: the blank canvases, the open sky, the warmth of spring, and the beating heart of a new born child? But he couldn’t help but delve into the idea that his life, instead of something new and welcoming, had deprived him of the light and banished him into darkness.

And it was a life of punishment, not second chances.


	2. Chapter 2

His voice was echoing, as if he heard him under the depths of the Pacific Ocean. Youngjae’s eyelids compressed against his eyes as an induced like state kept him from opening them. With his head spinning, his eyes pierced into Yongguk’s as the older hovered above him. “This can’t be happening…” he grumbled as a sharp pain in his chest spurred, the red blood cells tap dancing within the four chambers of his heart.

“I’d like to see it as if you are simply helping a fellow out.”

“I don’t understand.” The older knelt next to Youngjae, his legs crossed as he sat on his dusted caramel floors. With an elbow rested on his knee, Yongguk hid his mouth behind the palm of his hand, his eyes peering over at the younger.

“Think of it this way, someone has come into your life in an unexplained way. You can’t describe it or why it simply is, but he came to you for some assistance because you’re the only one who can.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little far-fetched?”

“No? Or you can stay being skeptical. That’s fine too, but you’d have to go through your whole life appearing as if you’re talking to yourself. People might think you’re crazy and you might go to an asylum. Now doesn’t sound nice?”

The sharpness in his tongue and the words coated with sarcasm: Youngjae could see right through this man. The shadows that painted his eyelids like a worn down raccoon gave his eyes more depth of darkness like the peak of night.

_The devil_. Youngjae was sure of this. He wasn’t a ghost; he was the devil.

“Alright” Youngjae hissed as he unglued himself from the floor. “Say that even for a minute I believed you, what do you want me to assist you with?”

Yongguk’s eyes trailed Youngjae’s movements before following him to stan. “There’s someone I need to look after. I want to see him okay.”

The younger crossed his arms in disbelief. “Now I know you’re calling bullshit. You’re an illusion. A ghost at most for the believers. By mythology, you can transport wherever you want or you can attach yourself to whoever you chose. You can see this person yourself.”

“And do what? Blow wisps of air at him? My energy will be nothing more than a feather brushing against his skin.” The younger watched as the older walked towards the window of his apartment, his gaze drawn to the outdoors that drenched in saturated colors. “I don’t know where I’ll go from here. If there’s a Heaven, what would it be like? Would it be like this world, only in pastels? Or will the acrylics be switched with watercolors. Or would there be Hell, and all colors would be doused in orange and red?”

He lowered his distance on the window, barely touching the frame to prevent himself from falling through. His hand found the glass, his finger tips air kissing the invisible sheen of the two-sided like mirror. “Or would there be nothing as if I dropped this whole canvas, this moment full of life, in black paint. That I would stand as I am right now, surrounded by darkness for all eternity where. no one will see my face or hear my voice.” A scoff escaped his lips as he lowered his head. “It’s almost no different from now.”

Yongguk shifted his body, his stare going over his shoulder as his eyes aligned with Youngjae. He offered a small smile, the curve of his lips broken and cracked under the force. Like staring into a fishbowl, the younger saw through the meaning behind older’s small upturn of the lips as the light flickered in his eyes. “I don’t care where I go” he told Youngjae, “As long as he’s okay.”

“I get it, I get it!” the younger groaned. “But what does it have to do with me!”

“I want you to befriend him. Help him through the grieving process. Just be there as a shoulder to lean on. Once he’s able to get back on his feet, that’s it. You can do whatever you want after.”

“That’s obviously pushing it! Are you out of your mind?!” Yongguk caressed the younger’s shoulder, staring him soulfully in the eyes. Youngjae’s eyes widen at how light the touch was, how it was truly a simple wisp of air.

“You’re the only shot I have.” Youngjae shoved his shoulder away from the older, turning away from him as he tousled his hair. He released a frustrated hiss, his eyes finding the lining of his ceiling.

“I already agreed to it, didn’t I?! God, who is this guy anyway and where can we find him.”

♦♦♦

His name was Jung Daehyun and he was Yongguk’s high school sweetheart. Youngjae quickly resented the idea at first, receiving a playful laugh from the older, but he ignored the younger’s protests by calling him an ‘old-fashioned coot.’ He continued to explain that halfway through college when his career was picking up, they began living together at the apartment complex near the center of the city. He offered to show Youngjae his version of the town and the younger was quick to agree, his body was due for some sunlight.

Youngjae took a stroll through Seoul as Yongguk told him stories of how Daehyun’s eyes sparkled like stage limelight or how his voice was like the crackling noise of a small campfire, but as smooth as melted chocolate. Youngjae imagined the face behind this lover that could cause a ghost to speak so much volume, as if he was sitting at his desk writing down his memoir that revolved around this one man. He felt as if he had met and almost fell in love in such a short amount of time with him. He lived a lifetime, swimming across the words Yongguk told, dancing among the memories as if time was nothing more than a set of numbers spiraling amongst the stars.

“You really loved him” Youngjae inquired as his feet dragged him along the shopping strip.

“I still do, it’s hard not to” the older answered, his eyes trailing the pavement they walked on.

Youngjae would be lying if he said he wasn’t jealous of such love. All those years he worried about whether he would survived to live until his next birthday. All those years he spent his time at hospital visits or being hospitalized. All those years: of course he didn’t have time to experience any kind of love, whether or not it would be okay to simply dream of another life.

All these thoughts drowned Youngjae as it sent needles into the deepest caverns of his heart. It spiraled in him how much time he may have wasted that his surroundings quickly meant nothing to him. He didn’t hear the bustling talk of people or the tapping of their walk. He didn’t see the sign of the light turn red or the sudden protest of Yongguk. It wasn’t until a car blared its horn and Youngjae had his face hit pavement that his senses enhanced him back into reality.

“Y-Yongguk…” he stuttered in a mix of fear and shock. His gaze fluttered like a lost bee in a garden surrounded by flowers. People watched him stunned on the ground, their whispers inaudible due to his thoughts of Yongguk.

Yongguk warned him, but he couldn’t have saved him;  _where is Yongguk_?

His gaze finally caught site of the older, but their eyes didn’t meet; the older’s eyes were in a daze beyond Youngjae. “Hey! Hey, are you alright?! Answer me, man! Are you hurt?!”

Youngjae looked above him and met eyes with his rescuer. His tanned skin made Youngjae realize how the sun loved others more than him just by staring at the way it painted the other’s skin in a mocha color. He observed the peaks of sweat that curled his auburn hair and how it shed light into his milk chocolate eyes. His rescuer colored him with charcoal, the shadows of the older hovering on top of him. Youngjae could see how the shadows burnt his left eye mole like it was the sun’s favorite spot on his face to kiss and how he wanted to caress it with his own hand.

Yongguk didn’t have to utter the word he kept lodged in his throat, the spur in Youngjae’s heart spoke for him. The way it twisted into itself as if the movement of his blood across the chambers of his heart were conducting a symphony, Youngjae already knew what Yongguk had put into a singular word next to him. “Daehyun…”


End file.
